Music and journalism by Kevin Pasman

Critical Fanmail

Dear mr. Coverdale,

Your recent performances have caused many people to ask for your resignation. I tend to see this with a little more nuance, but you can hardly deny that the upper register of your range has been somewhat shaky throughout the last few years. Of the three Whitesnake shows I have visited throughout the years, your performances ranged from alright (Arrow Rock Festival 2006), to good (Heerhugowaard 2009) to downright horrible (Arrow Rock Festival 2008).

The solution to the insecure nature of your higher register seemed simple and effective: ask your fantastic guitarists Doug Aldrich and Reb Beach to tune their guitars down a full step and turn up their sound. Case in point: the two new Whitesnake live releases ‘Made In Japan’ and ‘Made In Britain’. There’s two problems with this approach. First of all, tuning down gives the music a completely different vibe which generally doesn’t suit the songs too well and secondly, the guitars are so incredibly loud that it still sounds like you can’t keep up with them.

Of course, those who listen a little closer will quickly discover that you still have something to offer. You still have that incredible, goosebumps inducing lower range. That soothing Blues voice that graced quite a lot of the fantastic ‘Into The Light’ album and many of the ballads throughout Whitesnake and Deep Purple history. This part of your range can still be heard to great effect on these two live offerings, most obviously on the title track of the most recent ‘Forevermore’ album. You might want to consider focusing solely on that segment of your range. I’m not saying you should go all-out ‘Starkers In Tokyo’, but that register is your forte. Just leave the high-pitched screams to Glenn Hughes.

Back in the eighties, you were one of the two big names that miraculously gained an incredible range after throat surgery – Scorpions singer Klaus Meine being the other – but I think you should accept those days are over. Your backing band consists of a couple of capable singers who can carry the highs in the choruses for you and otherwise, you can always reside to the old trick of letting the audience do it for you.

Just consider a Blues record. I know you’d like to do it and your voice can still carry it.

Welcome to my weblog

Being a musician and a journalist, I felt the need to set up something to keep people informed about interesting publications and work-in-progress for both of these functions. I guess I am what people call a muso, so some of my ramblings may seem interesting to me, but will seem the contrary to you. Feel free to let me know in any case. I hope you will enjoy what I post here.